


a well-oiled machine

by elfloversanonymous (anotherdirtycomputer)



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: BDSM, Background Polyamory, Dom Isabela (Dragon Age), Dom/sub, Dominance, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, Femdom, Non-Sexual Submission, Safe Sane and Consensual, Spanking, Sub Fenris (Dragon Age), Submission, Sweet Isabela (Dragon Age), background fenders, fenris is trans but it doesn't come up, mentioned pre-fenders, nonsexual spanking, takes place near the end of act 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 14:03:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17143115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherdirtycomputer/pseuds/elfloversanonymous
Summary: Fenris likes maintenance days. So does Isabela.





	a well-oiled machine

**Author's Note:**

> merry christmas have some spanking
> 
> edit; forgot to share that fenris' safeword literally just means "bad" in latin, according to a quick google... i don't know why that's so amusing to me. rest assured he does not have need to use it in this fic!

Fenris likes maintenance days. Maintenance is on the fifth day of every week, so long as he or Isabela aren’t out travelling with Hawke. They’ve been told that the two have their weekly plans, of course, and Hawke honors their arrangements and asks few questions, but some things simply cannot be avoided. Fenris gets it.

So does Isabela. Which is why she’s elected that for every maintenance day missed, whether due to traveling or illness or whatever else, ten more swats will be added to the upcoming week’s maintenance.

Fenris finds that more than agreeable. The usual number of swats he receives during maintenance day spankings is fifteen, though he can elect for twenty if he chooses. With the ten added from last week’s venture to the Wounded Coast, Fenris has elected for the usual fifteen, which adds up to what he hopes will be a very satisfying twenty-five.

Sometimes, if the week has been particularly harsh, Fenris will ask for the final numbers to be caned instead, but the week has been good. It shocks him, in fact, how well his week has gone.

At the beginning of the week, he went to the Chantry to visit the Prince and wasn’t stared at or called any names, beyond his own by the very happily surprised Sebastian. There were plenty of slavers to kill throughout the week with not a single mage amongst them to pain his markings; just simple, murderous pleasure. Every card game played at The Hanged Man in the evenings, sore from killing and lax with cheap ale, has made Isabela and himself a bit of extra coin, which, when added to the money they’ve made from Hawke’s ventures, means they’ve been snacking like royalty.

 _And_ they were able to get that nice paddle Isabela had been looking into commissioning. A thing of nice, light blue leather, studded near the handle with a cute shape cut out closer to the other end. It should be arriving sometime soon.

Really, the week has been better for Fenris than he can remember a week being in quite a long time, and the weekly spanking is just going to be the cherry on top.

By the time Fenris has bathed and dried and made his way to the entrance of the play room, its open door displaying recently-swept stone stairs, he’s nearly vibrating in excitement. Not just for the feeling of Isabela’s hand hard against his rear, but also for the strength in her warm thighs beneath him, for the pride in her bright smile, and for the floating warmth that follows even as his ass still throbs with heat.

It’s also nice just to know they’ll always have something planned. They don’t always have time to play together, especially now with the rising difficulties with the Qunari, so Fenris cherishes these evenings. Isabela is very good at what she does, but even she cannot stop time long enough to plan a scene, ready a scene, and complete the scene, not with their recent busy schedules.

With maintenance days, they don’t have to do much. Everything is already prepared; Fenris’ growing anticipation and Isabela’s strong arm are really all they need.

As soon as he reaches the stairs, he takes a deep breath to calm himself. The stone is cold under his bare feet, the air below the mansion colder against his bare skin, and it sets the scene wonderfully.

Until he trips and nearly barrels down the final steps.

 _“Oof!”_ He gasps.

Isabela’s teasing laughter reaches him quickly, touched only faintly with concern. “Alright, Fenris? I’m the one who’s meant to hurt you tonight, silly, not the stairs.”

He brushes his embarrassment away quickly. It has no place here. “I am well.” He can’t quite keep his hurt pride out of his voice entirely, however.

“Poor thing,” she coos. Her dark hair is tied up in a rare bun, her usual clothing swapped out for dark breeches and a simple but comfortable brassiere. Her smile is bright and enticing. “Rushing down the stairs in such excitement! Two weeks is two long.”

He quite agrees. The way she looks sitting on the bed, waiting for him to lay across her lap, with the firelight from the many candles playing across her dark skin… If it were feasible (or healthy), he’d have this every night, thrown over her knee and beaten blue while she laughed her pretty laugh.

Before he realizes it, he’s on the bed, the skin of her legs chilled against his already cold chest.

Through a smile, she teases him. “I have to be able to reach your bum, sailor. Up a little higher, hm?”

He raises to his knee, the other leg keeping him from falling off the bed, and lays down again. It’s a lot less comfortable this way.

“Hm.” Isabela seems to agree. “Okay, hold on. I want you over my knees proper. This is _not_ proper!”

She helps him to stand, then walks him over to one of the benches - one for sitting, not for bondage or playtime torture. _Sad,_ he thinks. Those ones are lovely in their own ways and he’s begun to miss them a bit in all their business.

He watches her sit near the very edge, adjusting carefully and looking down at her own legs. “Alright, now lay over me this way, bum out and the rest of you facing the bench, hm?”

“Yes, Captain.” He follows her instructions easily, although the bench is low to the ground for his height. His knees can’t quite touch the ground, but with his weight held over her thighs, it’s much more comfortable.

“Excellent. That’s a good man.” She pats his rear affectionately, her praise bringing a grin to his face.

A happy sigh seeps out of him as he rests his forehead on his arms. Already, he’s feeling perfect. When her right hand reaches up to tuck his hair behind his ear, he’s even better than perfect.

“Are you sure you need a spanking tonight?” Her left hand smooths over his behind, following the curve all the way down his thigh and then all the way up to his back. She repeats the motion distractingly, slow and comforting, like she’s petting a lazy house cat instead of his ass. “Normally you like spankings when you’re angry, to help you get the feelings out without needing a tantrum. You’ve been downright chipper these last few days.”

“Today especially,” he flirts, entranced briefly by her nails moving so gently over his skin - before realizing what she’s just said. His voice comes a bit too quickly, embarrassing him again. “I could find something to be angry about, I’m sure.”

She only laughs; not the light sound he’s used to hearing during the day, but the Captain’s laugh. It’s low and hard in tone and never fails to make him tremble, especially when he wants it as badly as he does now. “It’s alright to just want a spanking, Fenris. You can always tell me if you do.”

Fenris swallows. He shifts his hips a bit, making sure they’re comfortable in her lap. “I do just want one. A spanking.”

“Just _one_ spanking?” He can hear her smiling.

“A large quantity of spankings.” He admits. “A lifetime’s worth.”

The next laugh she gives is quiet - not for Fenris’ sake, but for her own. Simple happiness, brought to her by Fenris’ words.

The joy that brings him is like a swell of warm water.

“Can you repeat your watchword for me, Fenris?”

His smile only grows. “I could whisper it on the other side of a battlefield and you would recognize it. It is _malus_.”

“So much sass… Perhaps you’ve earned a spanking after all.” She leans sideways to gently kiss his laughing mouth. “And how many swats did we agree on tonight, love?”

“Twenty-five. Do you want me to count them?”

“Would _you_ like to count them?” Her strong hands find his thighs, lifting them up a bit higher. He tries to bend his back to present his ass to her, but she pushes his spine straight again. “I’ve no preference, long as I get to spank you.”

He shivers, much to her amusement, both at her words and her touch. “No counting. Just… Just a spanking.”

“Perfect.” Her hand finally leaves his behind, pulling at Fenris’ gut like the string of a bow. He nearly goes to stand on tip-toe in his eagerness for what came next. “Watchword?”

 _Again?_ Wiggling his ass impatiently, Fenris sighs, “ _Malus,_ Captain.”

As soon as the last syllable leaves his mouth, Isabela’s hand wallops him so hard he jerks forward. All his breath leaves him, but he still manages to moan. It’s not even sexual - that’s never what maintenance is truly about. It’s about sating the need that builds and builds inside Fenris like the pull of an elastic band. It’s about finally letting go, exhaling after a long and often gruesome week. They say maintenance day is about keeping Fenris ready for play, physically and emotionally distanced from his past abuse, but it’s so much more than that.

Instead of worrying about whether courting Anders is the worst idea he’s ever had, he yells out “ _thank you!”_ in answer to the resounding smack of Isabela’s ruthless hand against his skin.

Instead of wondering what can be done about the Qunari, if anything can be done about the Qunari, he gasps raggedly as she spanks him thrice in a row so quickly it feels like one brutal impact.

Instead of remembering cruel hands upon him, he feels Isabela’s cruel hands upon him of his own volition, something he wants, something he needs, striking him in blessedly stinging staccatos that spell out _freedom_.

If he cannot know this bliss at the Maker’s side then send him to the Void. Eternity means nothing if not spent under Isabela’s strong and swift hand.

This is why he asks for this. This is why she gives it to him.

He’s already lost count of the swats, if he began to count them at all, when she raises her voice over the sound of his heated skin being abused to yell gleefully, “I love the way your ass jiggles!” Her grin sounds feral, like she’s ready to take a hearty bite out of his well-bruised dark peach. “It’s so cute, Fenris!”

And then he’s laughing, even as his eyes begin to prickle with tears, even as he’s shocked breathless by his Captain’s harsh blows. He can’t quite find that floating place he wants so much, not when he’s laughing and in pain, but it’s not so important now for some reason. He thinks maybe Isabela needed this far more than he did.

When he looks back and sees her smiling, he calls to her, “ _More._ I want- I want thirty-five.”

She meets his eyes, her arm held in the air, and he watches as her mouth curls up in a genuine, sideways smile. Sweat beads her brow and her hair frizzes out of her bun adorably. In that moment, he knows he’d do anything for her. Anything she wants, anything she needs, anything to make her happy.

“Ten- Ten more, please, Captain.”

“You want thirty-five?” She sounds breathless, her chest rising and falling nearly as hard as his own. Rarely does she hold back when they’re together like this, but tonight it seems she’s reigned in even less. “You’ll word if you need to?”

“Yes. Please, Captain, I want it.”

The same emotion is reflected in her own eyes - anything he asks for, he will receive. She doesn’t say it, likely wouldn’t even if pressed, using her fingers or tongue to run from something so true, but he hears it anyways in every near-thunderous slap that fills the room around them.

“Alright,” she whispers. She swallows hard, then pulls curly stray hairs from her face to tuck them back into her loose bun. “I’m not going to let up.”

He shivers. “I hope not.”

And then she’s hitting him again, her calloused hand sending him jolting forward against her lap, the tops of his thighs hitting the edge of the bench in a way that will leave far more painful bruising than even the spanking. It’s incredible; he’s entirely in the moment, not the Captain and her pet, but Isabela and Fenris, and yet he’s flying, smiling against his arms in ecstasy through his breathless groans.

“I’m yours.” He can hardly gasp it. When she swings her hand down for another hard spank, he repeats, “I’m _yours._ ”

“Yes.” _Crack!_ “You.” _Crack!_ “Are.” _Crack!_

By the time they finish, Fenris has begged out nearly fifty spankings. He’s shaking, sweating, and trembling all over, but she carries him to the bed and whispers gentle, elfroot-covered fingers across his rear, murmuring caring words into the air that only they will ever hear.

When Fenris falls asleep, he’s pressed tight against ‘Bela’s body, her breeches and brassiere forgotten in favor of a warm blanket over them both. She’s warm, her skin soft, the sound of her heartbeat more relaxing than he knew it could be. When she whispers, _I’m sorry_ , he thinks it’s for the severity of the spanking.

“You are forgiven.” He murmurs against the swell of her breast, leaving a gentle kiss to punctuate. “Easily and always.”

She holds him a bit too tightly, but he doesn't argue. Comfortably warm, his ass still sore, and feeling valuable and wanted, he slips away into a dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> oops, i made it a little angsty... i plan to make a dramatic and fluffy (and smutty) fic that takes place after isabela comes back after she leaves for a year, though, so :3
> 
> this fic still feels unfinished to me, but i feel like that no matter what i write, so hope ya'll enjoyed
> 
> comments and kudos are a writer's best friends!


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